A model lesson? Part 2: Marathon vs sprint
Last week I questioned the concept of outstanding lessons full of gimmicks that look great but ultimately may not result in much actual progress being made. Instead, I argued, embedding classroom routines and ensuring consistency are far more important in the long run. And, as classroom teachers, we're in it for the long haul. Who cares whether an individual lesson is a thing of beauty if your GCSE results are [...]
A model lesson? Part 1: routines vs gimmicks
It's been a busy week this week. What with starting at a new school, getting up before 5 to drive two hours on Monday morning, living an Alan Partridge-esque existence in a particularly horrific Travelodge, and risking whatever credibility I might have by teaching a 'model' lesson in front of colleagues I'd barely met to kids I'd never met. That this was in any way successful is largely down to the [...]
AfL: cargo cult teaching?
OK, so here's a quick summary of the story so far: A few days ago I suggested in a blog post that maybe AfL 'wasn't all that'. Lots of lovely people kindly got in touch to point out that I clearly hadn't got a clue what AfL actually was, and then Gordon Baillie wrote a really rather good response in defence of AfL on his blog. Right? Right. At this point [...]
Chasing our tails – is AfL all it's cracked up to be?
Is it blasphemous to doubt the efficacy of AfL? While purists might argue that it's 'just good teaching', we teach in a world where formative assessment has become dogma and where feedback is king. (Don't worry, I'm not about to start upsetting the feedback applecart although there are occasions when pupils can benefit from it being reduced.) But AfL as a 'thing'? I'm not just talking about some of the [...]
Motivation: when the going gets tough, the tough get going
If ever you get embroiled in a discussion on Learning Styles you may well be confronted with the chestnut of motivation. Learning styles, it seems to me, are all about motivation and management, and nothing whatsoever to do with learning. There is of course a correlation between learning and motivation but often they get conflated. Much of what goes on in classrooms is predicated on the belief that if kids [...]
Why can’t we tell a good teacher through lesson observations?
No teacher is so good - or so bad - that he or she cannot improve. Dylan Wiliam The English education system is obsessed with ascertaining the quality of teachers. And what with the great and the good telling us that teacher quality is the most important ingredient in pupils' success then maybe it's small wonder. As Michael Barber says, "the quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality [...]
The problem with fun
Getting students engaged so that they can be taught something seems much less effective than getting them engaged by teaching them something that engages them. Dylan Wiliam Could fun be the enemy of learning? I've not always been the curmudgeonly killjoy I am today. Some years ago, I took part in a department meeting where we were asked to prioritise those qualities we most valued about teaching. We came up with [...]
InformED Interview: We can only guarantee success if we have low expectations
Currently I'm sunning myself in Corsica, but just in case your suffering withdrawals from my regular posts here's an interview with yours truly by Marrianne Stringer from InformEd where I bang on about sundry views on teaching etc. Hope you're enjoying the break.
A guide to The Learning Spy
The summer holidays are here and tomorrow I'm foolishly attempting to drive to Corsica in a 1979 Campervan. That being the case, there will be no time for writing. So, to satisfy your desire for top quality blog posts (ahem) on all things educational, here is a thematic archive of the posts I've written over the past 2 years. See you in a month! Literacy Thinking like a writer - advice [...]
What's the point of classroom displays?
Having broken up for the summer and feeling warm and expansive, I foolishly asked Twitter what it would like me to write about next. Michael Oxenham came back, quick as a flash with "classroom display". Dutifully, I then asked Twitter what made a good classroom display. These are some of the responses: @tim7168 Also things that make the classroom 'theirs' (primary). Lots of photos, work etc. @benking01 Examples of best-practice from students [...]
How can we retain the best teachers?
Do we face a crisis in teacher retention? A few months ago I wrote a post which asked, why so many teachers left teaching. In it I considered the possible reasons for the shocking statistic that 50% of teachers leave the profession within their first 5 years of teaching. Lots of people got in touch to tell me why they had left, or were considering leaving teaching, and they had some [...]
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